Latest news with #Bronwyn
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
West Yorkshire Police cadets reunite 50 years after passing out
A group of more than 60 former police cadets have reunited after 50 years, with some travelling from the US and Australia to meet up with were teenagers when they joined West Yorkshire Police in 1975, and trained and volunteered with the force before a passing out parade in the famously hot summer of of them went on to become police officers, including organiser Rob Winslade, 65, who retired 14 years ago and now runs a family dog walking business in said there had been four reunions, including 1985, 1995 and 2005, but 2025's had been the best-attended. "Some people have not seen each other since the passing out parade, so there was plenty of catching up to do," he said."It went absolutely fantastic. As one of the lads described it at the end, it was an epic event. It was really special."The group met at Wakefield Sports Club, over the road from the now-closed Bishopgarth House police training centre where they originally Winslade – who had a 30-year career in the force after his stint in the cadets – said it was "genuinely lovely" to reminisce with old friends."It was lovely to see so many people after 50 years, including two of our old sergeants who were the bane of our lives when we were 16."One of our sergeants, Bronwyn, it was the first time in 27 years of retirement that she had been to any police reunion. So we were quite touched that she was there."He said the force had changed completely in the last 50 years."It had to move with the times," he said. "But I don't bemoan it, whatever is happening now is relevant to now and what I did was relevant to then."His most memorable experience as an officer was when he volunteered for duty at Princess Diana's funeral in September 1997, he said."Myself and about 15 police motorcyclists volunteered. We rode down to London and were looking after the motorway junctions."That was possibly the standout point of my career."We got to the motorway bridge at Junction 14/15 at Northampton early, just as the funeral cortege set off."When it left London people started to come out to the motorway and when the cortege went past the motorway was absolutely full of people, with just enough room for the cortege to get through. I was very emotional." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
Hamilton Spectator
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
A missing novelist, an early 20th-century painter and the Brontë sisters inspire new historical fiction
'The Story She Left,' by Patti Callahan Henry, Simon & Schuster Canada, $25.99. Inspired by the unsolved disappearance of 25-year-old fantasy novelist Barbara Newhall Follett in 1939, Henry's fictional version concerns Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, who walks out on her husband and child in 1927 South Carolina. In 1952, Bronwyn's daughter, Clara Harrington, an elementary school art teacher and award-winning children's book illustrator, receives a perplexing call from a London stranger, Charlie Jameson, who has a leather satchel with a manuscript; he has instructions from his recently deceased father to give it in person to Clara. She travels there with her asthmatic eight-year-old daughter Wynnie, where the Great Smog displaces them to the cleaner air of the pastoral Lake District. A Russian nesting doll of secrets is revealed — including the whereabouts of a mysterious linguistic key that will unlock the story of the second novel Bronwyn left behind when she abandoned her family — in this tender narrative about the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters. 'The Resistance Painter,' by Kath Jonathan, Simon & Schuster Canada, $24.99. In a dual timeline that artfully shifts between occupied Poland during the Second World War and Toronto in 2010, we follow the lives of two women artists, painter Irena Marianowska and her granddaughter Josephine Blum, a sculptor who specializes in graveyard monuments that reveal the life stories of the deceased. As a teenager, Irena joins the Polish resistance known as the AK, the Army Krajowa, in Warsaw, and works secretly for many years helping Jewish citizens escape through the underground network of sewers and aboveground safe houses. When a commission introduces Josephine to an ailing Polish client, Stefan, who claims to have also served in the resistance, she discovers a threatening truth about his past that leads her to the horrors of Ravensbrück and her own family history, in which her intrepid, risk-taking, beloved grandmother dared all to do what was morally right. Examining sacrifice, selflessness and resilience, Jonathan's atmospheric debut is both timely and timeless. 'Six Days in Bombay,' by Alka Joshi, MIRA, $25.99. Amrita Sher-Gil, the early 20th-century painter known as 'the Frida Kahlo of India' and the daughter of a Hungarian Jewish mother and an Indian aristocrat father, inspires the fictional biracial figurative painter Mira Novak who is at the heart of this engrossing novel that opens in 1937 Bombay. Hospitalized due to complications from a miscarriage, Mira is expected to make a full recovery. Yearning for a life larger than her own, attending nurse Sona Falstaff, only a few years younger, welcomes Mira's exotic and enchanting stories of travels and former lovers throughout Europe. When Mira dies suddenly, the hospital administration wrongly focuses on Sona, dismissing her. Even though the nurse only knew her patient for a short time, four of Mira's paintings have been left in her care to pass along to people from her past in Prague, Florence and Paris. Themes of identity and self-discovery drive this engaging portrait of young women daring to challenge societal expectations to become who they are meant to be. 'Fifteen Wild Decembers,' by Karen Powell, Europa Editions, $27. With its title appropriately lifted from an Emily Brontë poem, this captivating coming-of-age novel opens with six-year-old Emily joining her sisters at a girls' school in 1824, where the unsanitary conditions lead to the rampant spread of tuberculosis and the Brontës' subsequent return home to Haworth. Raised by their widowed father and his sister-in-law, and educated both at home and in boarding schools, encouraged to draw, write stories and stomp about the moors in the company of several cherished family dogs, the surviving Brontë children — Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne — share lives enriched and inspired by the natural world. Powell's sumptuous, careful prose vividly recreates Victorian Yorkshire and richly conveys Emily's vibrant inner life that sets her imagination aflame as she writes 'Wuthering Heights,' its wildness in her heart. An immersive, moving, literary page-turner.
Toronto Star
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
A missing novelist, an early 20th-century painter and the Brontë sisters inspire new historical fiction
'The Story She Left,' by Patti Callahan Henry, Simon & Schuster Canada, $25.99. The Story She Left Behind Patti Callahan Henry Simon & Schuster Canada, 352 pages, $25.99 Inspired by the unsolved disappearance of 25-year-old fantasy novelist Barbara Newhall Follett in 1939, Henry's fictional version concerns Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, who walks out on her husband and child in 1927 South Carolina. In 1952, Bronwyn's daughter, Clara Harrington, an elementary school art teacher and award-winning children's book illustrator, receives a perplexing call from a London stranger, Charlie Jameson, who has a leather satchel with a manuscript; he has instructions from his recently deceased father to give it in person to Clara. She travels there with her asthmatic eight-year-old daughter Wynnie, where the Great Smog displaces them to the cleaner air of the pastoral Lake District. A Russian nesting doll of secrets is revealed — including the whereabouts of a mysterious linguistic key that will unlock the story of the second novel Bronwyn left behind when she abandoned her family — in this tender narrative about the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'The Resistance Painter,' by Kath Jonathan, Simon & Schuster Canada, $24.99. The Resistance Painter Kath Jonathan Simon & Schuster Canada, 448 pages, $24.99 In a dual timeline that artfully shifts between occupied Poland during the Second World War and Toronto in 2010, we follow the lives of two women artists, painter Irena Marianowska and her granddaughter Josephine Blum, a sculptor who specializes in graveyard monuments that reveal the life stories of the deceased. As a teenager, Irena joins the Polish resistance known as the AK, the Army Krajowa, in Warsaw, and works secretly for many years helping Jewish citizens escape through the underground network of sewers and aboveground safe houses. When a commission introduces Josephine to an ailing Polish client, Stefan, who claims to have also served in the resistance, she discovers a threatening truth about his past that leads her to the horrors of Ravensbrück and her own family history, in which her intrepid, risk-taking, beloved grandmother dared all to do what was morally right. Examining sacrifice, selflessness and resilience, Jonathan's atmospheric debut is both timely and timeless. 'Six Days in Bombay,' by Alka Joshi, MIRA, $25.99. Six Days in Bombay Alka Joshi MIRA, 352 pages, $25.99 Amrita Sher-Gil, the early 20th-century painter known as 'the Frida Kahlo of India' and the daughter of a Hungarian Jewish mother and an Indian aristocrat father, inspires the fictional biracial figurative painter Mira Novak who is at the heart of this engrossing novel that opens in 1937 Bombay. Hospitalized due to complications from a miscarriage, Mira is expected to make a full recovery. Yearning for a life larger than her own, attending nurse Sona Falstaff, only a few years younger, welcomes Mira's exotic and enchanting stories of travels and former lovers throughout Europe. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW When Mira dies suddenly, the hospital administration wrongly focuses on Sona, dismissing her. Even though the nurse only knew her patient for a short time, four of Mira's paintings have been left in her care to pass along to people from her past in Prague, Florence and Paris. Themes of identity and self-discovery drive this engaging portrait of young women daring to challenge societal expectations to become who they are meant to be. 'Fifteen Wild Decembers,' by Karen Powell, Europa Editions, $27. Fifteen Wild Decembers Karen Powell Europa Editions, 288 pages, $27 With its title appropriately lifted from an Emily Brontë poem, this captivating coming-of-age novel opens with six-year-old Emily joining her sisters at a girls' school in 1824, where the unsanitary conditions lead to the rampant spread of tuberculosis and the Brontës' subsequent return home to Haworth. Raised by their widowed father and his sister-in-law, and educated both at home and in boarding schools, encouraged to draw, write stories and stomp about the moors in the company of several cherished family dogs, the surviving Brontë children — Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne — share lives enriched and inspired by the natural world. Powell's sumptuous, careful prose vividly recreates Victorian Yorkshire and richly conveys Emily's vibrant inner life that sets her imagination aflame as she writes 'Wuthering Heights,' its wildness in her heart. An immersive, moving, literary page-turner.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Aussie drivers warned over 'unacceptable' act after young woman's horrific injuries
Aussie motorists are being urged to be vigilant and respectful of other road users – even if they're on just two wheels. Close to eighty motorcyclists hit the road on Sunday to protest against aggressive drivers, taking a powerful stand in solidarity with a young woman who suffered traumatic injuries in an alleged road rage incident when a driver targeted her motorbike. Rachel Secker was back on her beloved motorcycle for the 'Ride Against Road Rage' event in Adelaide yesterday. But every time she throws the leg over, she is haunted by the incident that took place two years ago when she was knocked off her bike, completely decimating one of her legs. "Even though I love riding, it's put a bit of a dampener on it for me," the 23-year-old said. "Every time I get on the bike, it's like ... Is this going to be the last ride?" Speaking to 7News, she said she had to have her right leg completely rebuilt by doctors and "stoped counting after 20 surgeries" following the disturbing incident. 🚘 Aussie drivers 'fed up' after little-known act sparks $410 fine warning 😤 Driver rages over $387 fine issued after six-second moment 📸 Fears of 'mistakes' with new cameras targeting Aussie drivers Others who joined the ride said they have all experienced road rage from drivers in cars, with some lamenting that it happens on a "daily basis". "Many of us have experienced road rage to the point of fearing for personal safety. This behaviour needs to be publicly declared unacceptable," event organisers said. Motorcyclist Bronwyn Ridge who organised the ride told Yahoo that aggressive driving "is an ongoing theme within the motorcycle community". "We generally experience poor driving, distracted drivers looking at their phones ... We know what it's like to be tailgated, for cars to change lanes without looking. "There's people who don't understand that lane filtering is legal, and sometimes they will try and block us," she said. Even the event yesterday wasn't without such an incident, despite the group's strength in numbers. "We had a rider yesterday on the ride when a car came through a giveaway sign without stopping, right in front a rider fresh off her Ls," Bronwyn said. It comes as motorcycle deaths hit an alarming new high on the country's roads last year. Motorcyclist fatalities increased from 252 in 2023 to 278 in 2024 – a rise of 10.3 per cent – making last year the deadliest calendar year for motorbike riders since 1989. In total, 1,300 people died on Australian roads in 2024 — up from 1,258 in 2023, according to research conducted by the federal Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE). The motorist responsible for Rachel's injuries has pleaded guilty to running her down and will be sentenced tomorrow. "She'll face him for the first time when she reads her victim impact statement in court," Bronwyn told Yahoo. "He really went out of his way to ram a car into a motorcycle ... We just hope the crime is treated seriously." Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
